


john wayne

by notdarthvader



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Asshole Hanzo Shimada, Asshole Jesse McCree, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 08:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13586094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notdarthvader/pseuds/notdarthvader
Summary: Jesse McCree and Hanzo Shimada get along like an alcohol-fueled disaster house on fire.That is, once they stop hating each other.





	john wayne

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from john wayne by lady gaga. Once they stop hating each other u know these two just get fucked up together. And like, it feels like no one’s really explored this particular dynamic, because they’re both pretty rude people if u look at their voicelines and comments they make, and given how much they both talk about drinking, they’re definitely the place’s resident alcoholics. Take this one about as seriously as the song. Also, this goes from being really fucking dumb and goofy to being real serious and then back to being a shitshow real fast, so brace yourself for some emotional whiplash.

McCree answers the recall, because of course he does. Peacekeeper’s been itching for purpose, for meaning, for _direction_. So he answers the recall, and rolls up to Gibraltar, dirt under his nails, tension burning under his skin. He plasters on a smile, laughs and cracks jokes at all the right moments. But the Deadlock Gang, Blackwatch – they wanted a weapon, and so a weapon they got. There’s gunpowder etched in the skin of his hands and more scars than he can map into constellations on his body, and like all good weapons, he waits for Winston to say ‘jump’.

* * *

 

Of course, this is all very noble and all, and he’s certain he’s going to shoot and kill and die for this new Overwatch.

That is, until Genji shows up, his Omnic master in tow, and an enigmatic smile on his face about a potential new recruit.

* * *

 

You see, McCree didn’t spend over a decade in Blackwatch to not know a person’s tells. At peace with himself or not, this new Genji is very, very worried about the reception of this new recruit.

And McCree – well, he can put two and two together, and he’s not liking what four looks like.

* * *

 

As with too many things it seems, McCree is right, and Hanzo fucking Shimada shows up a few weeks later, much to Genji’s everlasting excitement and apprehension, and McCree’s _fury_.

He bares his teeth, sneers out a _bless your heart_ , and if he grips Hanzo’s hand a little too tight and feels a sickening satisfaction as Hanzo’s eyes darken with something like anger, well, maybe that’s something that Genji don’t need to know about.

* * *

 

Of course, Hanzo is hardly the repentant soul that Genji tried to paint him as.

He’s vicious, biting, bitter, and never hesitates to remind them all that in his _personal_ opinion, they are all worthless, pathetic, and he’s only here to evaluate their skills if they can help him improve in any way, and so far, he is _not_ impressed.

McCree wants to shove Peacekeeper’s barrel right between those pretty eyes and pull the trigger.

Judging from the taunting smirk Hanzo levels at him time, and time again, he damn well knows it, too.

* * *

 

He watches Hanzo shoot, angrier yet every time Hanzo lands a bullseye.

Until, after an impressive wall scale and scatter arrow, Hanzo knocks the heads off no less than four training bots and smirks, looking entirely too smug, and McCree is getting off his ass, hatred burning through his veins, as he stalks over to where Hanzo stands.

“Y’know, why don’t you use a sword? Genji says you were better with a sword than you are with the bow.” He thinks his voice comes across easy, but from the flash in Hanzo’s eyes, he’s more than picked up on the barb.

“The sword is a messy thing. Not as refined as the bow.”

“You’d know just how messy the sword is, wouldn’t you.”

Hanzo shoots him a violent glare that’s almost enough to stop him in his tracks. Almost. “If there’s something you wish to say to me, say it. Don’t be the coward my brother is and cut around your words.”

“ _Coward?_ ” McCree sees red, and somewhere in between things, Hanzo’s dropping his bow, and the fingers of McCree’s left hand are curling into a fist. “You’re a real piece of work, you backstabbing piece of _shit-_ “ is all he gets out between grit teeth before he lunges.

“You know _nothing_ about me,” Hanzo spits, and in the space between breaths, they are fighting, ugly, dirty, and furious.

* * *

 

They come away from it with black eyes, split lips, and nothing to sooth the simmering anger beneath their skin.

* * *

 

“McCree. I must ask you to not be so harsh on my brother. He is trying.”

McCree spits a laugh, ignoring the ache in his jaw and the taste of copper in his mouth. “Oh yeah? Well, tryin’ looks pretty damn funny to me.”

Genji just sighs. “Fine. Punch each other bloody. You are almost forty, the both of you. You shame yourselves.”

McCree grins at that. “Only for you, pal.”

“As you say,” Genji says then, after a pause. He hesitates again, and then: “I watched the footage of your fight. My honor and dignity are not yours to defend.”

McCree raises his chin and sets his jaw. “Be that as it may, there are some things I can’t let him get away with sayin’.”

Genji shakes his head, and leaves.

McCree crushes down the guilt that tries to rise in his throat the second the door slides shut.

* * *

 

He catches Hanzo hunched over the dinner table at 3am, clutching a mug of coffee in his hands, the bags under his eyes darkened and hollowed from nightmares, and he’s offended that Hanzo seems to heal faster than he does, because Hanzo’s earlier black eye is nowhere to be seen.

McCree is midway through making his own cup of coffee when Hanzo finally speaks.

“Genji is reluctant to accept that I was aware of what I was doing. You are right to hate me as you do. I apologize if he spoke to you about me. He should not have. Your anger towards me is not only justified, it’s how he should feel as well.”

It almost takes the wind from McCree’s sails.

Almost.

“Yeah? Well. I’m glad we’re on the same page about that.”

Hanzo snorts into his coffee. “Mazel tov, Jesse McCree.”

McCree gives him a mocking one finger salute as he shuffles from the room with his coffee in hand. “Go fuck yourself, Shimada.”

* * *

 

See, McCree thought he knew how Hanzo would fight when he got in that fist fight. He _thought_ , that after having faced down Genji’s graceful, fluid hand to hand combat style, Hanzo’s would, more or less, be the same thing.

He was wrong.

He was so fucking wrong.

The side of his head still aches from where Hanzo tore at his hair, and there are two blackened bruises on his forearm where Hanzo fucking _bit_ him.

Where Genji fights with fluidity and form and purpose, Hanzo fights ugly. Hanzo fights dirty.

Hanzo fights like a man ten years on the run.

McCree resolutely refuses to think about how hard Hanzo kicked his pussy, and how he’d never been so thankful he was trans until that moment.

“That son of a bitch,” he breathes out around his cigar. “Goddamn fucking asshole.”

* * *

 

He stumbles into the kitchen at 11am the next day to find Genji, Zenyatta, Angela, and Fareeha all gossiping and chatting between themselves in their workout clothes, fresh from their morning run and meditation.

“Good morning, McCree,” Genji says pleasantly.

“Mornin’,” he grumbles back, making a beeline for the coffee maker.

“Have you seen my brother today, Jesse?” Genji asks again and suddenly McCree is tempted to put his face through the counter.

“Nope, ain’t seen him since our disagreement.”

“You make it sound like you’ve only had one,” Fareeha says, something like humor in her eyes.

“Let a man at least have his coffee before you tear into him, why don’t you,” Jesse grumbles under his breath, and stumbles over to the table to join them.

“I am worried about him. He is not the person I remember,” Genji says softly.

McCree grunts into his coffee. “Was he this much of an asshole before he tried to kill you, too?”

Angela glares daggers at him, but Genji barks a laugh. “He’s always been rigid and he’s always postured like this. The constant drinking is new, though.”

“What’s he drink?” McCree asks, brow raised.

Genji snorts. “Knowing how pretentious he is, I’d have to wager he either drinks sake for the principle of it, or something high class like gin or wine.”

McCree grumbles under his breath as he contemplates the pros and cons of dumping some of his whiskey in his coffee. “Man can’t even be bothered to have decent taste in alcohol, huh.”

“If alcohol was classed according to you, Jesse, it would only be whiskey that would be considered quality,” Fareeha teases.

“Hey now, that ain’t true. It’d be scotch, bourbon, and then whiskey.”

The table bursts into laughter at that, and Jesse tries to ignore the unease settling in the pit of his stomach.

* * *

 

On a mission, Jesse watches Hanzo snipe two enemies that sneak up behind him, choke another with the center string, and then gouge out the eye of a fourth with the end of the bow before snapping their neck.

“Pretty handy with that,” Jesse admits on the flight back. Hanzo studies him for a long moment, before he smirks, arrogant and haughty.

“Impressed, gunslinger?”

“I’m just surprised you can shoot at all with that stick up your ass,” McCree spits.

“It helps my posture,” Hanzo says, deadpan, and then pulls his headphones back up, conversation clearly over.

McCree huffs and pulls his hat further down his face.

* * *

 

“You killed your own brother, huh,” Hana Song asks him. Except it’s not a question. Not really.

Hanzo shrugs one shoulder. “Apparently not.”

“Do you regret it?” Her face is inscrutable.

Hanzo sighs and leans back, folding his arms across his chest. “What would there be to regret? Where do I begin regretting what has happened that leads to an outcome where Genji has his life intact? No. In this, I can regret little.”

Hana’s face does not change.

“I have forgiven him, though he has yet to forgive himself,” Genji says, his voice soft from the other end of the table, a rare occurrence where there is more than just Hanzo and McCree stewing over their dinner and glaring at each other.

Hanzo scoffs. “There is nothing that can be forgiven about what I have done. It is pointless to dwell in what-if’s and maybe-so’s.”

Hana says nothing, but turns her attention back to her food.

McCree studies Hanzo’s face as it betrays nothing, before following suit.

* * *

 

“He is many things,” Genji says once, as he and McCree watch the ground fall away, strapped into the Orca as they are, “but he is still my brother.”

McCree grunts in response.

“And, while that may have meant something different to us when we were boys, he is my _brother_. Surely you know what I mean, Jesse?”

McCree looks over at Genji, his faceplate off, the harsh edges of his scars gentled by the setting light of the sun and the ease of his expression. “Yeah,” Jesse says after a pause, the lump in his throat tight. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

* * *

 

Things don’t get easier.

Hanzo is rude, and stand-offish, and spits warnings every time Genji ventures near him. He sneers at McCree every time Jesse looks at him sideways, and goddamn if it isn’t making Jesse want to put a fist in his face something bad.

But Genji always looks at Hanzo, posture even, the face plate hiding his expression, and says only, softly, _as you say, brother_.

_As you say._

* * *

 

On the battlefield, however, Hanzo does not exaggerate his skill or his aptitude for getting them all out of a conflict in one piece. He’s fast, brutal, and efficient. On infiltration missions, he’s better, pulling on his disguise like a second skin, vanishing into the target population with ease. He’ll vanish into his disguise for months, not materializing again until the jobs done, half a year later.

He’ll have new scars, his hair will be longer, but he’ll still smirk, pretentious as always, and tell them _what else did you expect? I am the best. I always achieve my goals_.

McCree glares at Genji and Genji just shrugs. _He’s not wrong. He does get the job done,_ Genji insists, and his voice is almost apologetic.

 _He’s a dick about it,_ Jesse hisses back, and from the way Fareeha and Angela glare at Genji as well, he can hear them agreeing with him.

But Genji just squares his jaw and stands tall. _He is my brother,_ he says, the same way he said _he is my friend_ , when defending McCree, or even _he is my commander_ about Reyes, once upon a time.

Jesse just swallows and looks away.

* * *

 

“Hanzo, you need to do something with yourself. It shames me to see what you have become. Nearly forty and drunk before noon, being an assassin for hire on the rare occasion you’re sober.”

“Ugh, sober.”

“What would father think of us now,” Genji tries, but Hanzo only laughs.

“It’s hard to tell who he would be more disappointed by. You, the one who sold clan secrets to Overwatch and couldn’t even die well enough to be honored in your death, or me, the washed-up fool who couldn’t even kill you well enough to maintain my own honor.”

Genji huffs. “As you say, brother.”

A pause.

“Well, if you’re going to get well and wasted, I’m of half a mind to join you.”

“Why, so you can keep pitying me, you machine?”

Genji shrugs. “Actually, it’s because I can’t stand listening to you bitch while I’m sober for another second, but whatever you need to tell yourself.”

Hanzo stares for a long moment, his jaw dropped slightly open, before his face softens and he passes over the bottle of wine.

“ _I might never have liked you. Point of fact, I despise you. But that doesn’t suggest I don’t respect you_ ,” Hanzo says, his voice quiet.

Genji throws back the bottle chugging as much as he possible can manage before setting it down and wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand. “ _Dying in our sleep is a luxury our kind is rarely afforded. My gift to you_ ,” he responds, his voice soft and meloncholic, and it’s worth it to watch Hanzo’s stony expression crack into a smile.

They trade the bottle back and forth as the sun climbs to its peak, and then starts its slow descent into the ocean.

Hanzo peers down the empty bottle and tosses it aside with a grunt. “Go get us more,” he snaps, elbowing Genji in the side.

“How come I always have to get the alcohol? You listen well… for ten years now, you sit on your ass, and I get the alcohol. If this was the military, I’d be General by now!”

Hanzo snorts, a hiccupping noise, that he tries to hide in his hand. “Oh,” he says, the lines coming back to him easily, “so you’d be General, huh? If you were General, I’d be Emperor, and you’d still get the alcohol. So shut up, and get us the fucking sake.”

“I don’t remember Hattori Hanzo cursing so much, brother,” Genji chides, but he can’t hide the snicker in his voice.

Hanzo makes a face, then it shifts into something that’s almost a smile. “Fuck off, Genji.”

Genji leaves to hunt down more whiskey, or gin, or whatever he can pinch from Angela’s cabinets, his step lighter than it had been in years.

* * *

 

“He’s turning you into a drunk, Genji,” Angela chides, but there is real worry in her voice.

“Who, Hanzo?” He snorts. “No more than I turned him into a drunk when we were young, I would think. Which is to say, not at all.”

“You were not at meditation this morning, Genji,” Zenyatta adds.

Genji shrugs.

“Again,” Zenyatta says, a little more forcibly this time. Besides him, Fareeha folds her arms, her expression worried.

“He is my brother. He has forgotten how to even be himself, I think, but he still has the same shit humor he always has. It’s easiest to bond with him over it when neither of us are sober.”

“Just be careful, Genji. We nearly lost you once to him.”

Genji laughs at that. “Hanzo could not kill me any more. Don’t you see? Thanks to you, Angela, and this highly advanced prosthesis that is my body, I am stronger than ever! Hanzo wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Wouldn’t I now?” Hanzo leans against the doorframe, elegant strands of hair falling around his face. Despite the bags under his eyes and the fact he’s in a flannel and sweatpants, he looks regal and haughty as ever.

The four of them freeze, before Genji spins to face him.

“I kicked your ass a few months ago, I could do it again now.”

Hanzo rolls his eyes and shuffles off to the kitchen, seemingly unconcerned with how badly he scared them. “As you say,” he calls over his shoulder.

“He’s a dick, Genji!” Angela hisses between her teeth.

“Yeah, well. Some things never change.”

* * *

 

McCree finds Hanzo lighting up on the top of one of the lookout towers some time later. Before he can say a word, Hanzo hands the blunt over, and McCree takes a grateful drag.

“So,” McCree says, and Hanzo makes an affronted noise.

“Let me at _least_ be a little less sober before you start talking.”

“Now listen here you,” Jesse snaps, passing the blunt back. “I’ll talk your ear off now if I damn well please.”

Hanzo grumbles but just takes another hit. “Fine, whatever. You have nothing better to do, as I expected,” he sneers, but he hands the blunt back over.

And so, they spend the night bitching at each other and getting high.

It’s the best night either of them have had in a while.

* * *

 

McCree is determined not to repeat it, lest Hanzo become someone he can tolerate.

Unfortunately, those plans get blown out the window next time he stumbles across Hanzo drinking and Hanzo offers up his flask without even making eye contact.

McCree grumbles under his breath, but sits down with him and takes a swig.

* * *

 

“I can’t believe to show you regretted killing your brother, you up and decided to kill people for ten years.”

Hanzo shrugs, all loose limbed with the whiskey in his system. “Mercenary work relaxes me,” he says fumbling with the bottle to take another pull. “It’s like yoga, except I get to kill people.”

McCree barks out a surprised laugh. “Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth. You know, your brother decided to take up yoga with that mentor of his and Angie and Fareeha.”

Hanzo groans. “It’s sickening. All… healthy and relaxed. Sober. Ugh.”

“Up at the ass crack of dawn, and going on runs? What are they, middle aged housewives?”

Hanzo chokes on his alcohol. “You-“ he says between breaths. “You better not let Dr. Ziegler catch you saying that. For however good I am with a sharp edge, I guarantee you, she is better.”

McCree stares. “Did you just-“

Hanzo gives him a weak, lopsided grin. “Am I wrong?”

Jesse throws back his head and laughs.

* * *

 

Things don’t exactly change in public.

Hanzo is still snappish and stand-offish and rude and crass and _infuriating_ , but more often than not, it’s things that McCree agrees with, and finds himself wisecracking along with him or at him, and they bicker at each other, obnoxious enough to drive Genji, or anyone in the surrounding areas, mad.

“Jesse, as your friend. I’m asking you politely,” Genji says, “just fucking go to the training range and punch each other out again. I’m tired of listening to you both bitch at each other on the coms.”

Jesse just grins. “What, Hanzo n’ me? Naw, this ain’t bitching.”

“ _Shut the fuck up, McCree, I can hear your obnoxious voice from here,_ ” Hanzo’s voice comes through the coms. Genji folds his arms and taps his foot impatiently as Jesse grins sheepishly.

“Why you payin’ so much attention to my voice, sweetheart? You like it or something- ack!”

An arrow pins the brim of McCree’s hat to the wall behind him, conveniently between the eyes of a now dead enemy agent.

“ _Maybe you should pay attention to your surroundings rather than your own bullshit fantasies._ ”

Genji glares harder and McCree can’t stop laughing.

* * *

 

It takes some getting used to, Hanzo’s dry, acerbic, _biting_ humor, but once he does, the shift is welcome. Picking up on the insults woven into his speech becomes a source of amusement for McCree, mostly because the rest of the watchpoint still hasn’t picked up on the subtler of Hanzo’s insults, and the sly nature of his jokes.

He sets a cup of coffee on the kitchen island labeled for Hana at 6am every morning. Of course, by the time she wakes, the coffee is cold and has been sitting for hours. Hana thinks he’s trying to get on her good side and flatly informs him that she still hasn’t decided if she can forgive him yet.

Hanzo nods, his face turned to the floor.

McCree, however, can see the sneaking smile on his face, and read between the lines enough to know that with that cup of coffee? Hanzo’s making fun of her for gaming all night long.

“Y’know, you should get off her back about that,” he says out of the blue when Hana walks in to grab her coffee.

Hanzo makes an inquisitive noise, and while his expression doesn’t change, there is humor in his eyes.

“Get off my back about what,” Hana demands, all the stone anger of a soldier steeling her spine.

McCree gestures to the coffee cup in her hands.

Hana blinks, the wheels turning in her head. Hanzo goes back to sipping his third, fresh cup of coffee.

Hana processes this, too, then her flat expression turns murderous. “You’re an asshole. I’ve yelled at you at least three times for giving me cold coffee and you’re-“

“Well,” Hanzo says, “If you were awake earlier, perhaps you could get your cup of coffee warmer. A disciplined schedule is good for you, regardless of your background.”

Hana glares and walks out.

She takes her coffee with her though.

* * *

 

Hana wakes by seven the next morning, and though her coffee is still not piping hot as she would like it, the cup is warm to touch and despite the glare, she takes her warmer coffee and stalks back to her room.

* * *

 

When McCree stumbles into the kitchen to see a cold cup of coffee with his name on it, and Hanzo nowhere to be seen, he suddenly remembers why he hates the man.

“You’re an ass,” he yells out the window, hoping wherever Hanzo wandered off to he’ll hear him.

“Your point?” Hanzo’s voice comes from the living room behind him and McCree jumps about four feet in the air.

“JE-sus _fucking_ Christ.”

“Unfortunately, it’s only me. Nothing quite as miraculous. I can understand the confusion though,” Hanzo says smugly, and he looks fucking exhausted, but that arrogant smile is back on his face and boy _howdy_ Jesse’s about to fight.

“You made me coffee, you passive aggressive ass.”

Hanzo shakes his head. “No. I didn’t. Hana woke up before us both and made us both coffee at three this morning. She thought she could be up early enough to make me cold coffee.”

Jesse lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Goddamn. You’re gonna bring out the worst in everywhere here on base. We’re all a bunch of ugly, petty people.”

Hanzo shrugs one shoulder and pours more of his Irish Cream in his coffee. “I had figured the worst was already brought out in all of you when I joined.”

And Jesse can’t quite think of anything to say to that, so they sit in silence, and drink their coffee together.

* * *

 

Hanzo stands up abruptly, midway through dinner.

McCree glances up at him, spoon paused midway to his mouth.

“Your music taste is terrible,” he says, and then he marches out of the room with his dinner in hand.

“Wh- Hanzo!” McCree shouts after him, grabbing his dinner and following. “I ain’t even playing music! You can’t just out and insult a man’s preferences like that! How dare you!”

Genji just sighs as he watches them leave, Jesse yelling after Hanzo the whole time. “He really is playing McCree, isn’t he.”

Morrison looks over his paper. “Like a damn fiddle.”

“I don’t understand why he doesn’t just ask McCree to join him, instead of antagonizing him into following him.”

Jack shoots Genji a sideways glance. “I wasn’t ever in Blackwatch, but I seem to remember you doing the same to new recruits to get them to follow you to the sparing arena.”

Reinhardt bursts out laughing as Genji hides his face in his food.

* * *

 

Hanzo and McCree bickering about the most mundane things becomes commonplace.

At dinner.

During a movie.

On a morning run.

Midway through a mission overview.

Genji is growing ever closer to pulling his hair out.

* * *

 

Unfortunately for Genji, it’s part of the bet they have going on.

If Genji finds out they’re drinking buddies, whoever was discovered or gave away the secret has to give the other top shelf liquor of their choosing.

McCree doesn’t think he’s put his Blackwatch skills to such use since he acquired them.

* * *

 

Hanzo complains when he’s drunk. A lot.

This is one thing McCree’s learned after a few late nights with him. The first few hours is McCree filling the silence as Hanzo listens and stares at the grey of the horizon, and it’s only when they’re well and truly sloshed, does he start talking.

And talk he does.

Hanzo has shit to say about every topic imaginable, and it’s all an eclectic mix of complaints, backhanded compliments, and bad jokes and references threaded together in a language that McCree is almost too wasted to follow.

“Widowmaker,” Hanzo says, and waves his flask in a careless motion, gin spilling down the sides of it. “A good shot. Not as good as me though. I’m the best around!” and then he breaks off into helpless giggles. “We do not train to be merciful here, mercy is for the weak.” His laughter trails into a somber silence. “She knows that, though. She is very good. Few could compare.”

“Y’know, Hanzo, if we weren’t well and truly fucked up, I’d well think you were Talon over how you’re raving about her skills,” McCree tells him, and it’s worth it to see Hanzo snort midway through a pull of gin, alcohol coming up his nose as he sputters.

“Pfft. They may have a better taste in music that all of you, but they are not the path I wish to take.”

“Better- _Hey now_ -“

“You spent years with Genji. Am I wrong?”

McCree has a brief flashback to the number of times Genji hijacked the speaker system on Blackwatch missions, and the ensuing hours on hours of Vanilla Ice they all had to suffer through.

He sighs. “Alright, I’ll give you that one.”

“He said. He said,” and here Hanzo’s voice pitches high and mocking. “ _Vanilla Ice didn’t copy Under Pressure! There’s a total difference in the way they sound!”_ Hanzo clears his throat and takes a sip of gin, and waits until McCree’s midway through another pull of his bourbon to speak again. “I had to kill him for that,” then laughs, loud and barking as McCree chokes on his drink.

* * *

 

They get high and steal a hovercycle, McCree’s erratic driving sending them out into the middle of the nearby nature reserve. Illuminated only by the neon of the city lights, and the stars overhead, the trees seem almost blue, and Hanzo’s hair trails out behind him like a stain of ink against the dark velvet of the sky.

One arm slung loose around McCree’s waist, Hanzo fishes out his flash from his jacket with the other, using his teeth to unscrew the lid and throwing back a shot.

“What’s on the menu tonight?”

“Gin,” Hanzo says shortly, and takes another pull. “Clear alcohols are for rich women on diets,” he says, “and me, apparently.”

“If it’s alcohol, it’s for you. Don’t play cute like gin’s the only thing you drink.”

Hanzo snorts, ugly and undignified, burying his face in the thick scarf around McCree’s neck.

“Can you imagine being sober? Ever?” Hanzo asks from where he’s slumped against Jesse’s back.

“Unfortunately,” Jesse responds.

Hanzo barks another laugh that hiccups through his nose. “Disgusting.”

* * *

 

“Hanzo. Angela, Fareeha, Zenyatta, and I are all going to the art exhibit at the local museum! Would you like to join us?”

Hanzo looks up from where he’s pouring Irish Cream into his coffee. “Why would you look at art of nature when you can go outside and stand in it.”

“Hanzo it’s-“

“You don’t feel the cold anymore, don’t make excuses.”

“Hanzo, you need friends. You have been isolating yourself since you came here, and it’s horrifying to watch my big brother kill himself like this.”

Hanzo switches out the Irish Cream for whiskey and shoots Genji a _Look_. “I have a friend. The gunslinger and I are friends.”

“Getting in fist fights with Jesse doesn’t count as friendship.”

Hanzo snorts. “Yes. Fist fights. Of course.”

Genji pauses. “Wait. _W A I T._ ”

* * *

 

McCree’s door flings open right as he’s pulling his sweatpants on over his boxers.

“ ** _Are you fucking my brother, Jesse McCree?!_** ”

Jesse screams higher than he’d like to admit and jumps about three feet in the air to hide behind his bed. “What in the ever loving **_hell_** , Genji! No! I ain’t _fucking_ your brother!”

Genji blinks, startled. “You’re- Then why…?”

McCree blinks back at him. “Wait. Did he-“

Genji turns red in the face. “I’m leaving.”

“No, Genji, you can’t leave me hanging like that! C’mon, did he say he liked me? Genji, please!”

* * *

 

Angela is staring at Hanzo, stuck somewhere between shock and awe. “You-“

Hanzo drains his whiskey-with-a-splash-of-coffee with a hum of amusement. “Yes.”

“I see,” she says, and there is almost something like approval in her voice.

* * *

 

“The Glenlivet Fifty-Nine Year. 'S what I deserve because you ratted us out to your brother, and then I got jumped by him. It's bad for my heart, I need this medicinal alcohol to fix it.”

Hanzo stares at McCree, incredulous. “This costs seven thousand dollars.”

McCree smirks. “What, you tellin’ me a yakuza prince can’t afford somethin’ that small.”

Hanzo glares. “So help me, Jesse McCree, I will use your bounty to pay for this, and then drink it in front of you when I visit you in jail.”

“Oh, I’m right fine with that. I’ll just turn you in and use your bounty to pay my bail, pay for that fancy ass Armand de Brignac Rosé Champange, and then down that right in front of you.”

Hanzo’s glare goes so dark, Jesse wonders if he won’t just kill him on the spot. “Fuck you. You will share this with me, or you will be sleeping with one eye open.”

Jesse just grins. “Sweetheart, I was always going to share it with you when I won.”

 _“W h e n ?_ ”

* * *

 

Hanzo ends up buying two handles of Glenlivet 59.

One to drink.

The other to break on the ground in front of McCree, just to watch him cry.

* * *

 

“Say, Hanzo,” McCree says, and he’s tugging at the brim of his hat anxiously.

“I’d rather make you say it,” he grumbles under his breath. Then, to McCree; “Can I help you?”

“Wait, what’d you say under your breath there.”

“Does it matter?”

“Uh, yeah, I’ll damn well say it does since you turned all kinds of red and you’re already drunk enough that I know that means you’re thinkin’ of something dirty.”

 Hanzo folds his arms over his chest and smirks, arrogance settling into his posture like a second skin. “Would you like me to say something dirty, gunslinger?”

McCree finds himself leering right back, leaning up into Hanzo’s personal space. “You’re more than welcome to try me, sweetheart.”

Hanzo’s smirk widens, and there’s a wicked gleam in his eyes and McCree knows he’s about to regret whatever happens.

“Trash.”

McCree blinks. “Pardon?”

“Filth. Garbage. Genji’s room when he decides he’s too lazy to clean. Your fucking hat. This entire fucking watchpoint since no one knows how to clean up after themselves.”

McCree blinks again.

Hanzo’s grin is downright _sinful_. “You said something dirty, Jesse McCree. A fool would I be not to oblige you.”

Jesse shoves his hat into Hanzo’s face and swipes the flask from his hand. “You’re an ass, Shimada.”

Hanzo sputters, and somewhere between his protests and arguing, McCree finds himself tracing the sharp cut of his cheekbones with his eyes, watching the flush from the alcohol rise high in his cheeks, and the delicate strands of hair that fall loose from his ponytail, framing his face.

He comes to when he realizes Hanzo has been staring at him, irritated, his foot tapping against the ground.

“Wha-“

“You’ve had the stupidest expression I’ve ever seen on your face for the past five minutes. Care to explain yourself?”

He blinks. Then, a slow smile slides over his face, cheshire and mocking. “Does it matter?”

Hanzo curses under his breath. “I’m holding your hat hostage until you give in.”

“Sweetheart, you’ll have to-“ he freezes when he realizes-

“ _Sweetheart_ ,” Hanzo mocks, “you threw it in my face ten minutes ago,” and he holds up the Stetson, the brim already crumpling.

McCree whines high in his throat. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Hanzo grins. “Would you like to find out?”

* * *

 

And somewhere, between all the bickering and fighting and complaining and drinking and talking and smoking and _talking_ , they stop being Hanzo and McCree and kind of became something like Hanzo-and-McCree: two bastards who show up late to lunch because they spent all night chasing gulls on the beach to see who could shoot more while drunk.

* * *

 

And Jesse? He thinks he’s pretty okay with that.

* * *

 

Or at least, that’s what he tells himself.

Right until Hanzo falls asleep slumped against his shoulder midway through trading pulls from a bottle of whiskey.

He’s a heavy, solid weight against Jesse’s body, and his cheek fits so well into the curve of Jesse’s shoulder, and McCree’s heart should _not_ be turning over in his chest as uneasily and desperately as it is.

Hanzo stirs and grumbles something in his sleep.

“What was that, sweetheart?” His voice is fragile, breaking, and he hopes to every god above that Hanzo isn’t conscious enough to hear it.

Hanzo pushes his face further into Jesse’s chest. “You should do the right thing and jump off this roof. Genji will no longer be able to judge me for my alcoholism if I am mourning the death of my dearest friend.”

Jesse blinks. On one hand, Hanzo just told him to kill himself as drunk and half asleep as he is. On the other; _dearest friend._

“Oh wouldn’t he? I’m right sure he’d blame you for pushing me off.”

Hanzo sighs mournfully and tips over so his head is now in Jesse’s lap, his hair loose and splayed out across McCree’s legs. His new piercings glitter in the dim lamp light. “How is it possible that a spirit such as yourself even knows, Jesse McCree?”

He doesn’t say anything else, lapsing into sleep, and McCree is left with a pounding heart, trembling hands, and the struggle of whether or not to run his hands through Hanzo’s hair.

It takes him four hours to decide not to, and instead, drapes his serape over Hanzo’s sleeping form, and slips away.

* * *

 

This fragile friendship, this… _thing_. Whatever it is.

Jesse will take what he can get, and he’ll be happy with that. Just having Hanzo with him, as a friend? It’s enough.

It’s more than enough.

* * *

 

Of course, right as he thinks he might be happy, disaster strikes in Jesse McCree’s life.

* * *

 

Because there is Hanzo fucking Shimada, gorgeous and witty and cruel and a complete and total dick about the things that matter, who smiles like the break of dawn over the horizon and laughs loud and ugly and free, and Jesse’s maybe a little bit stupidly in love with him, and he’s standing there, the only man between them and the swarm of Talon agents bearing down on them.

There’s blood dripping down the side of his face, and his lips are twisted into a snarl and his gi is blackened with bloodstains, and Jesse’s not sure how much of it, if any, is from the enemy agents.

They’re pressed up against the Orca, and her engine is stalling out, and Talon is closing in, and Hanzo’s still between them and the hoarde, meters, miles, years away from the rest of them, the wave of agents almost drowning him out, and all Jesse can think of is the hole in Gérard Lacroix’s forehead and the cruel twist of Widowmaker’s lips and his chest is twisting, hurting something desperate and then-

And then Hanzo yells, bright, angry, and desperate, and looses an arrow.

* * *

 

You see.

You see, there’s a feeling that builds in your blood, that boils under your skin when you stand on the porch in the hot, sticky, sweat of summer. The way time feels slow and intangible as you watch those storm clouds build on the horizon, dark and merciless. The way the birds in the trees and the bugs in the grass go quiet, stifled in the heat, silenced by the anticipation.

And when that first wave of cold air breaks through the haze, the smell of petrichor washing over you, and you see that first crackle of lightning flicker through the clouds, smell the hiss of it in the air.

That feeling?

Well.

* * *

 

You see, Jesse’s felt that before.

Jesse’s felt the first break of cold air on a hot summer eve, he’s felt the chill of the rain closing in on him.

He’s yelled at the sky and killed a few men in a few storms in his time. He’s felt the power of lightning as it strikes the building across the street, or the lightpole a ways over, or even the roof over his head.

But that?

None of that could compare to this.

* * *

 

The dragons burst into the air with a crack, a roar that reverberates through Jesse’s very soul.

The smell of rain and the burn of ozone washes over him, the hairs on his body standing on end. The clouds overhead open up, rain pouring down in sheets, as if they were waiting for the dragons to grant them permission. Thunder rumbles around them, the very ground shaking as the crackle of lightning shudders through the rippling of the beasts’ bodies.

Time itself slows to a whisper as sound fades, buried beneath the swell of the dragons’ scales.

He’s only dimly aware of the Talon agents keeling over, his eyes locked on the swelling crests of the dragons’ backs, like the roil of clouds overhead, as they curl and snarl through the endless ranks as if it were nothing.

Then, as quickly as it appeared, the clouds blow over, the dragons vanish into the horizon, the clouds following in their wake.

It’s only when the dragons fade that Jesse’s able to hear his own shallow breaths, feel the rain that’s soaked through his skin, and watch, horrified, as Hanzo crumples to the ground.

* * *

 

Hanzo flatlines twice on the flight back, and both times Jesse’s heart stutters along with it.

* * *

 

He lives though.

 _Unfortunate_ , is the first thing Hanzo says when he wakes. And then he closes his eyes and slips back into unconsciousness for another several hours, the three patched bullet holes in his side burning a warning into Jesse’s skull.

* * *

 

“Why are you here,” is the first thing Hanzo asks him, next time he wakes up. It’s not really a question though, and Hanzo doesn’t give him time to answer. “You hate me. To be precise, you fucking hate me. Why are you here, looking at me all sad and pathetic as you are?”

Jesse blinks awake, startled. “I. Hanzo,” and his voice gets all weird and soft and quiet, breaking off on the edges of Hanzo’s name. “I don’t- I don’t hate you. Hanzo. Jesus, Hanzo, we ate soup on the roof at midnight in our boxers a few weeks ago. How- I don’t-“

Hanzo snorts. “My brother told you to play nice. You were doing exactly that.”

McCree stares at him, jaw slack, words dying on his tongue. Takes a deep breath.

Then, Jesse reaches out and curls his fingers through Hanzo’s. His hands are rough, calloused by the bow string, and worn from years of fighting, and Jesse tries desperately not to think about how easy it is to slot their hands together.

“Hanzo,” he says again, and Hanzo glances over at him. “Hanzo, there’s no way I could hate you anymore. Sure I did, back when you first showed up. But not anymore.”

Hanzo swallows, and there’s a fearful edge to his expression, but he nods anyways.

He nods, and tightens his grip on Jesse’s hand.

It’s enough.

* * *

 

Three days later, Hanzo is out of the med bay thanks to Angela’s miracle working, with a strict order to not mix his meds with weed or alcohol. That, coupled with a threat that he better not be training for the next week, and Hanzo is absolutely _insufferable_.

He spends half his time laying on McCree’s floor, complaining about being sober and not being able to train, and the other half sitting outside Genji’s door complaining as loudly as he can at him about how terrible his taste in music is until Genji comes out and yells right back about some obscure 90s artist and they fill the hall with their bitching.

Hanzo stares longingly as Jesse drinks, and McCree wastes no time in both making fun of him for being unable to drink, and drinking his whiskey as obscenely as he can. If Hanzo’s gaze lingers on his lips a second longer than it should when he does so, they don’t talk about it.

They don’t talk about it.

* * *

 

Perhaps the problem then, is at the end of all things, beneath all the bullshit and posturing, they are both old, broken men.

McCree offers Hanzo a weak smile at 2am, the bags under his eyes deep and bruised, the mug of coffee clutched tight in his hands.

Hanzo just looks away, his gaze distant, lost.

**Author's Note:**

> Hanzo’s quotes and references are taken from all the overwatch and heroes of the storm references he makes and expanded upon a bit.  
> Also ignore me with the rarest rare pair of a happy poly relationship of genji angela fareeha and zenyatta. I personally like to call them the breakfast club, and theyre all very healthy and put together people who get up at 5:30am to go for a run and meditate together, then have a healthy breakfast with their protein supplements by 8:30am, and then do yoga together and face the day happy and refreshed.  
> By contrast, mccree and Hanzo stumble out of their shared bedroom together, hungover, at 11am and by the time they get to the lunch table, hanzos already drinking again. Hanzo’s skin is only as flawless as it is bc he manages to do his skincare routine drunk/high/fucked up.


End file.
